SAT talent searches lead nowhere for many
Peggy
Thought some of you might be interested in this even if it is a
schooling article since it seems to accurately discribe the
wasteland of middle school/high school for kids who don't fit in.
Peggy
http://www.usatoday.com/usatonline/20030121/4794983s.htm
SAT talent searches lead nowhere for many
By Laura Vanderkam
As schools across the country prepare their students for annual
grade-level testing under the No Child Left Behind Act, thousands of
bright seventh- and eighth-graders are getting ready to take on a
greater challenge this Saturday: the SAT college entrance exam.
Since 1972, when Professor Julian Stanley of Johns Hopkins
University first gave high-achieving middle schoolers college
entrance exams to find exceptional potential, more than 1 million
children have participated in these ''talent searches'' run by
universities such as Northwestern, Denver and Duke. Although all
search participants must score above the 95th percentile on their
grade-level tests, some will score only the bare minimum on the SAT.
Others will have near-perfect results.
These scores will help schools determine which students need more
advanced work than they may be getting in class. At least, that's
the idea. Talent searches work best as a compact between students,
the search program and the school. We will identify profound talent,
the programs say. Then the program and the school together will
nurture it.
But talent searches have failed to keep their promise. The SAT can
identify talent, but because most middle schools do nothing with
high SAT scores, the promised nurturing tends to take place during
summer camps run by the search programs themselves. Such programs
are lifesavers -- for those who can afford them. But until every
district has a school where the brightest are challenged in an
environment with their intellectual peers, America can't claim it's
leaving no child behind.
With all of the talk of failing schools these days, few consider
that schools can shortchange their highest scorers, too. When I
recently asked several former talent-search participants who scored
more than 1,000 on the SAT what their schools did with their scores,
most seemed puzzled by the question. A typical response: ''What
could they do? I was already in honors math.'' These bright students
expected to be horribly bored, even in courses aimed at the top
quarter of the class.
Their schools, flaunting honors English and maybe seventh-grade
pre-algebra, were also blasé about providing more. Stephen Shueh did
well enough on the SAT as a seventh-grader to be able to cover
algebra and geometry during a talent-search program he took the next
summer. He came back to eighth grade -- and went right back into
algebra class.
''Some people may have argued more,'' he says. ''But the school made
you jump through hoops, and there was no class past algebra in the
middle school.''
Talent-search programs have fought this attitude for years.
The problem, according to Paula Olszewski-Kubilius of Northwestern's
Center for Talent Development, is that ''it's still, unfortunately,
viewed as something a kid does on her own.''
Susan Assouline of the Belin-Blank Center at the University of Iowa
agrees.
''Julian Stanley saw this from the beginning,'' she says of the
program's initiator. ''There have been very slight changes. Now it's
no longer phenomenally radical to take algebra in eighth grade.''
But that won't satisfy kids capable of more. I asked
Olszewski-Kubilius about a hypothetical seventh-grader who scores a
650 on the SAT math section.
''That means intellectually she's functioning at a college level and
college level for a pretty bright student,'' she says. ''She's ready
for an accelerated course of study. She doesn't need to spend nine
months doing algebra.''
But she probably will. And she'll spend years in middle school
English classes, even honors classes, reading young-adult books and
writing five-paragraph essays that bore her to tears.
Blend this with middle school social scenes that don't value smarts
and no wonder talent searches' summer programs seem like heaven. At
universities across the country, students zoom through courses such
as geometry, computer science and literature, covering a whole
year's curriculum in three weeks. They revel in bouncing ideas off
classmates who don't think they're freaks for liking to learn. Liz
Baker, who helped teach a drama/writing class in a program at
Stanford, says her students ''were like camels who find a lake in
the desert -- drinking up all the water they could in the short time
they had.''
These watering spots aren't cheap. Northwestern's program, for
instance, costs $2,200 a session. So most of the students
participating hail from the upper middle class. Kids from
less-privileged backgrounds, who need the experience most, usually
don't get it.
For these students' sake, every school district that promises a free
and appropriate education needs to replicate these heady
intellectual environments -- during the school year.
Mike Klibaner found classes at his Staten Island, N.Y., middle
school underwhelming. He, too, escaped his boredom for a few weeks
in the summer with a class at Franklin & Marshall College.
But because Klibaner lived in New York, he could apply to one of the
city's prize-winning magnet high schools -- in his case, Stuyvesant.
Stuyvesant's entrance exam, like a talent search, identifies New
York's brightest from a sea of high achievers. Then Stuyvesant helps
these students learn all they can absorb in one of the country's
most challenging high schools.
''Everything changed there because I was no longer an outcast among
the general student body,'' Klibaner says. To stretch his mind while
surrounded by students who loved to learn, Klibaner was willing to
travel almost two hours daily, each way.
Fulfilling the promise of talent searches means every district needs
a Stuyvesant and a middle-school equivalent. Smaller districts can
combine to provide a critical mass of gifted students for these
schools -- like Klibaner, the kids will travel. More isolated
districts can still create magnet programs to concentrate the
brightest, give them teachers trained to aim two-to-three grade
levels higher and adjust the curriculum to challenge students who
need more.
A dozen states fund residential gifted high schools, usually only
for juniors and seniors. All states should have these schools, and
they should serve more than just two grades.
These solutions aren't terribly expensive. Magnet schools cost just
a bit more for transportation, and residential schools cost no more
than what states spend per child on special education. Gifted
children have special needs, too.
But because some people find such programs elitist, most districts
do not provide them and do little with talent searches beyond
congratulating the high scorer.
After all, a seventh-grader who can't read seems more of a crisis
than a seventh-grader whose mind is shutting down from learning
fractions again.
Still, leaving no child behind doesn't require squelching those who
want to surge ahead. Talent searches can find these children.
Ignoring their gifts denies them the education they deserve.
New York-based writer Laura Vanderkam is a member of USA TODAY's
board of contributors.
schooling article since it seems to accurately discribe the
wasteland of middle school/high school for kids who don't fit in.
Peggy
http://www.usatoday.com/usatonline/20030121/4794983s.htm
SAT talent searches lead nowhere for many
By Laura Vanderkam
As schools across the country prepare their students for annual
grade-level testing under the No Child Left Behind Act, thousands of
bright seventh- and eighth-graders are getting ready to take on a
greater challenge this Saturday: the SAT college entrance exam.
Since 1972, when Professor Julian Stanley of Johns Hopkins
University first gave high-achieving middle schoolers college
entrance exams to find exceptional potential, more than 1 million
children have participated in these ''talent searches'' run by
universities such as Northwestern, Denver and Duke. Although all
search participants must score above the 95th percentile on their
grade-level tests, some will score only the bare minimum on the SAT.
Others will have near-perfect results.
These scores will help schools determine which students need more
advanced work than they may be getting in class. At least, that's
the idea. Talent searches work best as a compact between students,
the search program and the school. We will identify profound talent,
the programs say. Then the program and the school together will
nurture it.
But talent searches have failed to keep their promise. The SAT can
identify talent, but because most middle schools do nothing with
high SAT scores, the promised nurturing tends to take place during
summer camps run by the search programs themselves. Such programs
are lifesavers -- for those who can afford them. But until every
district has a school where the brightest are challenged in an
environment with their intellectual peers, America can't claim it's
leaving no child behind.
With all of the talk of failing schools these days, few consider
that schools can shortchange their highest scorers, too. When I
recently asked several former talent-search participants who scored
more than 1,000 on the SAT what their schools did with their scores,
most seemed puzzled by the question. A typical response: ''What
could they do? I was already in honors math.'' These bright students
expected to be horribly bored, even in courses aimed at the top
quarter of the class.
Their schools, flaunting honors English and maybe seventh-grade
pre-algebra, were also blasé about providing more. Stephen Shueh did
well enough on the SAT as a seventh-grader to be able to cover
algebra and geometry during a talent-search program he took the next
summer. He came back to eighth grade -- and went right back into
algebra class.
''Some people may have argued more,'' he says. ''But the school made
you jump through hoops, and there was no class past algebra in the
middle school.''
Talent-search programs have fought this attitude for years.
The problem, according to Paula Olszewski-Kubilius of Northwestern's
Center for Talent Development, is that ''it's still, unfortunately,
viewed as something a kid does on her own.''
Susan Assouline of the Belin-Blank Center at the University of Iowa
agrees.
''Julian Stanley saw this from the beginning,'' she says of the
program's initiator. ''There have been very slight changes. Now it's
no longer phenomenally radical to take algebra in eighth grade.''
But that won't satisfy kids capable of more. I asked
Olszewski-Kubilius about a hypothetical seventh-grader who scores a
650 on the SAT math section.
''That means intellectually she's functioning at a college level and
college level for a pretty bright student,'' she says. ''She's ready
for an accelerated course of study. She doesn't need to spend nine
months doing algebra.''
But she probably will. And she'll spend years in middle school
English classes, even honors classes, reading young-adult books and
writing five-paragraph essays that bore her to tears.
Blend this with middle school social scenes that don't value smarts
and no wonder talent searches' summer programs seem like heaven. At
universities across the country, students zoom through courses such
as geometry, computer science and literature, covering a whole
year's curriculum in three weeks. They revel in bouncing ideas off
classmates who don't think they're freaks for liking to learn. Liz
Baker, who helped teach a drama/writing class in a program at
Stanford, says her students ''were like camels who find a lake in
the desert -- drinking up all the water they could in the short time
they had.''
These watering spots aren't cheap. Northwestern's program, for
instance, costs $2,200 a session. So most of the students
participating hail from the upper middle class. Kids from
less-privileged backgrounds, who need the experience most, usually
don't get it.
For these students' sake, every school district that promises a free
and appropriate education needs to replicate these heady
intellectual environments -- during the school year.
Mike Klibaner found classes at his Staten Island, N.Y., middle
school underwhelming. He, too, escaped his boredom for a few weeks
in the summer with a class at Franklin & Marshall College.
But because Klibaner lived in New York, he could apply to one of the
city's prize-winning magnet high schools -- in his case, Stuyvesant.
Stuyvesant's entrance exam, like a talent search, identifies New
York's brightest from a sea of high achievers. Then Stuyvesant helps
these students learn all they can absorb in one of the country's
most challenging high schools.
''Everything changed there because I was no longer an outcast among
the general student body,'' Klibaner says. To stretch his mind while
surrounded by students who loved to learn, Klibaner was willing to
travel almost two hours daily, each way.
Fulfilling the promise of talent searches means every district needs
a Stuyvesant and a middle-school equivalent. Smaller districts can
combine to provide a critical mass of gifted students for these
schools -- like Klibaner, the kids will travel. More isolated
districts can still create magnet programs to concentrate the
brightest, give them teachers trained to aim two-to-three grade
levels higher and adjust the curriculum to challenge students who
need more.
A dozen states fund residential gifted high schools, usually only
for juniors and seniors. All states should have these schools, and
they should serve more than just two grades.
These solutions aren't terribly expensive. Magnet schools cost just
a bit more for transportation, and residential schools cost no more
than what states spend per child on special education. Gifted
children have special needs, too.
But because some people find such programs elitist, most districts
do not provide them and do little with talent searches beyond
congratulating the high scorer.
After all, a seventh-grader who can't read seems more of a crisis
than a seventh-grader whose mind is shutting down from learning
fractions again.
Still, leaving no child behind doesn't require squelching those who
want to surge ahead. Talent searches can find these children.
Ignoring their gifts denies them the education they deserve.
New York-based writer Laura Vanderkam is a member of USA TODAY's
board of contributors.
[email protected]
On Wed, 22 Jan 2003 11:26:22 -0700 Peggy <durrell@...> writes:
than the average high school senior who took the test. I ended up
dropping out of high school - for a lot of reasons, but that did test did
help me to feel that no matter what I wanted to do later, missing high
school wouldn't leave me too far behind.
It was a start. It's kind of like when we started unschooling, and I
looked at some of the grade one stuff and figured Rain was already there,
so I didn't have to worry for a while... and by the time she got to grade
two I was done worrying about anything.
Last night she was writing thank you notes for her birthday party (which
was all her idea, since I've always been of the opinion that thanking
someone in person means you don't have to write a note, but if you want
to it's always a nice gesture) and she was writing about all the things
she'd made with the kits a friend had gotten her. She asked me, "Should
there be those fwooshy things here and here?" and pointed right where two
commas should go. Yup. I was so impressed. The only punctuation marks I
remember talking about with her are periods and apostrophes, so she must
have just remembered commas from reading... very cool.
Dar
> Thought some of you might be interested in this even if it is aI did this in 7th grade. I remember them telling me that I scored better
> schooling article since it seems to accurately discribe the
> wasteland of middle school/high school for kids who don't fit in.
than the average high school senior who took the test. I ended up
dropping out of high school - for a lot of reasons, but that did test did
help me to feel that no matter what I wanted to do later, missing high
school wouldn't leave me too far behind.
It was a start. It's kind of like when we started unschooling, and I
looked at some of the grade one stuff and figured Rain was already there,
so I didn't have to worry for a while... and by the time she got to grade
two I was done worrying about anything.
Last night she was writing thank you notes for her birthday party (which
was all her idea, since I've always been of the opinion that thanking
someone in person means you don't have to write a note, but if you want
to it's always a nice gesture) and she was writing about all the things
she'd made with the kits a friend had gotten her. She asked me, "Should
there be those fwooshy things here and here?" and pointed right where two
commas should go. Yup. I was so impressed. The only punctuation marks I
remember talking about with her are periods and apostrophes, so she must
have just remembered commas from reading... very cool.
Dar
waptia <[email protected]>
--- In [email protected], freeform@j... wrote:
http://www.infernus.net/rants/write_like_a_wanker.html
Peggy
> I did this in 7th grade. I remember them telling me that I scored bettertest did
> than the average high school senior who took the test. I ended up
> dropping out of high school - for a lot of reasons, but that did
> help me to feel that no matter what I wanted to do later, missing highThat's a good perspective on it.
> school wouldn't leave me too far behind.
>there,
> It was a start. It's kind of like when we started unschooling, and I
> looked at some of the grade one stuff and figured Rain was already
> so I didn't have to worry for a while... and by the time she got tograde
> two I was done worrying about anything.where two
>
> Last night she was writing thank you notes for her birthday party (which
> was all her idea, since I've always been of the opinion that thanking
> someone in person means you don't have to write a note, but if you want
> to it's always a nice gesture) and she was writing about all the things
> she'd made with the kits a friend had gotten her. She asked me, "Should
> there be those fwooshy things here and here?" and pointed right
> commas should go. Yup. I was so impressed. The only punctuation marks IJust don't show her Write Like a Wanker. ;)
> remember talking about with her are periods and apostrophes, so she must
> have just remembered commas from reading... very cool.
>
> Dar
http://www.infernus.net/rants/write_like_a_wanker.html
Peggy